


Uncaught

by fleurjaune



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Bitterness, Dead Emilie Agreste, F/M, Feelings Realization, Jealousy, Mentioned Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Moving On, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Relationship, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Self-Hatred, Self-Reflection, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28478865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurjaune/pseuds/fleurjaune
Summary: Even Gabriel can't keep going forever and after he gives up on their quest to save Emilie Nathalie watches him slowly open up and move on.It's not with her.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Original Character(s)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

In retrospect Nathalie thinks she had some sort of premonition the first time she met Adele Lachance. Nothing had been odd when she’d opened the door to welcome the client in and received a perfectly polite smile in return but for a moment she’d felt a stabbing pain in her chest.

Not knowing what was coming she’d assumed it was old unhealed damage from the Peacock Miraculous.

And maybe it was.

It’s just hard not to ascribe significance to it now.

* * *

She hadn’t noticed there was anything out of the ordinary in that first meeting between Adele and Gabriel. She’d been bright and warm and he’d been polite and interested but neither of those things were unprecedented in the Atelier, even since Emilie’s death.

* * *

“An interesting woman,” Gabriel had said after.

“Yes,” she’d agreed without realising what she was doing, “She seems to have had an interesting life.”

* * *

And she’d been wilfully blind. It seems to be a special skill of hers. It had never occurred to her to think anything odd in how often they’d seemed to meet. She’d thought it was business. It _had_ been business-she’d been there for enough of it.

But she’d ignored that growing warmth and admiration between them and she must have ignored it because there’s no way that she could have not noticed it otherwise. Not when she spent her life trying to anticipate and manage Gabriel’s moods.

In her defence, to the extent that she had one, it had been easy to do because it had seemed like an established fact that Gabriel was never going to have any interest in any woman other than Emilie.

He might have accepted her death and given up Hawk Moth but his grief over her was still deep and real. She still believes that’s true. She has to believe that’s true because if it’s not then what she’d done for him was unforgivable.

* * *

She’d liked her.

She’d thought she was a good influence on Gabriel.

Gabriel had been about to reprimand Adrien and Adele had said “Oh let the boy have some freedom Gabriel, he’s seventeen.”

And he _had._

When he’d ignored Nathalie when she’d tried to encourage such things for years.

That had probably been a sign.

* * *

“Oh,” Gabriel had paused in the Atelier door if it was something completely trivial he’d forgotten, “Nathalie make sure I’ve replied to the Bourgeois’’ invite to their New Year’s Ball. Adele’s agreed to come as my plus one.”

“Yes sir,” she said on autopilot and had never been more grateful for her years of practiced non-reaction, “I’ll get that done.”

* * *

She’d still wondered if perhaps she’d misunderstood how he’d meant it. After all he couldn’t _truly_ mean to start a new relationship.

Not when anything he tried would always have the rotten foundation of the secret of what they’d done beneath it.

* * *

That idea had got blown away clearly enough when she’d gone into work one morning to find Adele in the kitchen in Gabriel’s dressing gown.

Adele hadn’t seemed embarrassed at all, but had been faultlessly polite to Nathalie.

It’s one of the things that makes her hard to hate because plenty of women of her type and class aren’t polite to Nathalie at all.

* * *

“She’s a good person isn’t she?” Gabriel had asked her once.

Nathalie had given the only answer she could since it was pointless her giving any other one when she’d never been able to change his mind about anything. “I think so sir.”

“Sometimes I think,” he’d sighed and trailed off.

At that point Nathalie had self-administered the last stab to her heart. “You’re allowed to be happy sir. Emilie would want you to be you know.”

He looked at her then and she’d feared he could see through her but all he’d said was, “Thank you Nathalie.”

* * *

It’s not fun tasting the truth when she’s been lying to herself for so long.

_She’d wanted him to be happy._

That’s what she’d told herself.

_She wanted him to have Emilie back._

She’d told herself that too.

_She could have watched the two of them together and been satisfied._

That’s another.

_It’s not that type of love._

That one is the worst of them.

Because the others, they might have been true. If it had been Emilie, _his wife,_ miraculously returned from death _with Nathalie's help_ then maybe Nathalie could have watched satisfied.

That would have been the right and proper thing. Their marriage preserved and their family put back together.

But if Gabriel can move on from Emilie, if Gabriel _doesn’t_ need Emilie to be happy, if Gabriel is in fact capable of loving another woman after all, then Nathalie Sancoeur has been an even stupider woman than she’d realised.

It seems that the issue was never Emilie. It was Nathalie.

And now she’s stuck watching Gabriel start a new life with another women while she chokes on the falsehood she told herself because it turns out it’s not a disinterested admiration bolstered by loyalty on her part _at all._

* * *

Blonde, beautiful, old-money, personable, and warm. Between Emilie and Adele it’s fairly clear _that’s_ Gabriel’s type.

No wonder he never glanced Nathalie’s way.

* * *

Adrien likes Adele too.

Of course he does. She’s all indulgence and understanding where Nathalie’s been the disciplinarian over the years.

And Nathalie knows she deserves to lose in this contest because she’d done so little for Adrien and had let Gabriel get away with so much regarding him all because she’d been blinded by her love for him.

Now that she knows her feelings, and knows the true reason he’d never reciprocate that there’s a certain constant bitterness in her mouth that’s washing away the other lies she tells herself too.

She’d never thought she was a good person, but the more she thinks on what she’s done for him the more she realised just how flimsy all her excuses that been.

* * *

That he can’t find out is one of the only things she _is_ sure of, and she makes an active effort to make sure he doesn’t. She _has_ to cling to whatever small bit of dignity she has.

“I’m glad to see you happier these days sir. It makes me think I should try dating again myself.” She rehearses in front of the mirror.

When she actually says it he looks at her oddly and she knows it was a mistake and she’s overstepped where she shouldn’t have because they’re _not friends,_ she’s just his assistant.

“I’m surprised you haven’t before,” he says eventually, “You’ll have to bring your boyfriend here for Adrien and I to meet so we can vet him properly.”

In her surprise at that response her stupid idiot mouth betrays her, “That’s a little premature sir. I don’t exactly have your advantages in that area.”

He frowns, “My _advantages?_ I’d think it was quite the opposite way round.”

She could point out to him that he was married and is now happily dating someone while her own romantic life has been a barren wasteland for years. Besides which he’s rich and successful, while she’s an assistant with no social life who’s in love with her boss. Hardly a catch.

She’s an embarrassing stereotype and the only thing worse than that is that she’d _still_ somehow like to be more of one.

* * *

For the first time since before Emilie had died Nathalie Sancoeur makes a healthy decision.

She’s quitting.

Not immediately. She doesn’t want it to be that obvious, and she needs to find a new job first. Preferably not in the fashion industry. Or not in Paris. Or both.

But she can’t stay here and keep watching this. Especially as Adele keeps dropping by while they’re working as if she doesn’t have a career of her own to be looking after.

* * *

She’s googled Adele a lot and the sad fact of the matter she _is_ a much better person than Nathalie.

She’s never been a supervillain and Google Images is full of images of her on various charity jaunts.

It seems like you do reap what you deserve. Unless you’re Gabriel. But then Gabriel’s always been an exception to everything.

* * *

For Adrien perhaps she might stay, but Adrien’s almost off to university anyway.

And now it's _much_ more obvious why she’d done what she had she doesn’t really think she deserves his affection, or that hers would be any great balm to him.

So instead she schedules some time off and instead of having a true holiday she fills it with interviews.

* * *

Stupid she might be but she _had_ had the sense to anticipate that she’d be asked why she wants to move on _now_ and to prepare an answer to that in advance. More precisely multiple answers because if she's saying it's because she wants the opportunity of a new job then she had to be clear on what that opportunity is.

And this time it works.

Without Gabriel there to throw her off she gives multiple masterful performances.

She even manages to stifle her instinctive laugh when they ask if Gabriel would offer her more money to stay and if she'd take it and politely tell them no, she doesn’t think that's likely but that she wouldn’t take it anyway, rather than telling them there’s absolutely nothing he could do to make her stay because if she stays in that house a moment longer then one day she's going to walk out on her lunch break directly into the traffic and hope something hits her.

* * *

She still isn’t brave enough to say it to Gabriel himself, and sends her resignation directly to HR instead.

She will tell him. She _will._ Just later.

Later when she's had time to prepare for his anger, because she knows he’ll view this as a betrayal.

But he’d betrayed her first by pulling her into something she’d never asked for and then silently promising her in all those times he'd taken her hand, and cupped her face, and brushed his fingers against her arm, and all the rest, that they were at the very least in this together. That after Emilie, and after Adrien, _she_ was next on the short list of people he cared for.

And he must have known what he was doing because otherwise he’d never have stopped doing it and he _has._

He’d manipulated her and it makes her feel dirty and used and yet it still works on her and she hates herself for falling for it.

* * *

“Nathalie.” Gabriel greets her curtly and she knows he's been informed and that she _should_ have told him herself because this is _much_ worse. “I’d have thought you'd have told me you were leaving me yourself.”

“I’d meant to sir, I just,”

“Didn’t.” He finished for her. 

“I didn’t want to make a big thing about it.”

“How _exactly_ is this not a big thing? Have you even told Adrien?”

For once he sees the truth in her eyes. “That’s a no then. God, why would you spring this on us like this?”

That’s not fair. Nor is bringing Adrien into it. She’s not Adrien’s mother or Gabriel’s lover. She’s just his PA. So she answers in that role, “I followed all the company guidelines and processes sir.”

“You followed,” he makes an incoherent noise of sheer frustration, “do you think I care about that, Nathalie,” on her name his voice switched from anger to something else and she has to harden her heart because it’s _so much worse._ “I just don’t understand why you’d do this. You’re not, not unwell or anything are you?”

If she _was_ she wouldn’t resign because the company would have to pay her sick leave indefinitely but she doesn’t have to point it out because he knows that already. He’s clutching at whatever idea comes into his head.

Apparently she’s capable of surprising him too.

“No. I'm fine. Or as fine as I can be these days,” there let him dwell on the fact Nathalie’s never been _right_ since she put that Miraculous on, “I just. I need a life outside work Gabriel, and a job that takes less of my time, and I have for _years_ honestly. But it never felt like it was the right time to leave you back when you were struggling through losing Emilie,” and neglecting Adrien, and terrorising Paris, “but I think it is now. Adrien’s off to university soon and you’re in a better place now. You don’t need me anymore so I can leave now.”

“You've felt like this for years?” She can't quite make out the tone in his voice.

“I have.”

He turns away from her to look at Emilie’s portrait still hanging in the Atelier and says, “I suppose I can’t stop you then.”

“I don’t think legally you could regardless sir.”

“Nathalie.” He bites out but then he doesn’t say anything more, so she just starts her normal days work.

* * *

Adrien’s concern and worry when she told him did make her almost reconsider.

But she’s done much worse to Adrien for his father’s sake. She can’t give up this thing she’s doing for her own.

She’d given him the personal phone number she’d barely used, so consumed into the Agrestes lives, and told him he could always contact her.

She doesn’t know if he will. Adrien’s not Gabriel. She believes _his_ affection is honest. But it’s an affection created by circumstances. She wouldn’t know what to do with him if he turned up to see her.

Nor does she have any idea what sort of thing they’d even do together. Do people go out for lunch with their father’s ex-assistants?

This job has eroded her sense of any idea of what normal people do and what normal boundaries are.

* * *

Gabriel gives her the most ridiculous necklace as a leaving gift and she wants to spit in his face and ask _why does he have to keep doing things like this,_ and if he’s trying to buy her goodwill to keep her mouth shut about Hawk Moth.

She just smiles and accepts it instead.

Apparently she’ll never understand his motives, because this isn’t the sort of thing you give _your assistant_ , even Nathalie with her shaky grasp of appropriateness knows that. Adele agrees if how she stares at it and then at Gabriel as if she’s seeing someone else is any indication.

Terribly that gives Nathalie a little bit of satisfaction in her gut, _see,_ she thinks, _you’re lucky, you’re getting to see this side of him sooner._

* * *

Where on earth he thinks she’s going to wear it she doesn’t know.

Maybe she should sell it.

* * *

Once she’s safely alone in her apartment she lets herself slide down to the floor. She’s finally for the first time in her life done the right thing.

Why does she feel so empty?

* * *

She deliberately doesn’t look at any articles mentioning him and tries to ignore any ads for his brand.

It doesn’t really help.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated this chapter b/c I liked the openness of the original but people seemed interested in a continuation so having written it I thought I might as well share it.

Despite he looks back on it, looking for the signs he must have missed, Gabriel never does many to work out exactly what happened with Nathalie.

She’d been _right,_ he supposes. Right to want to leave. He had pushed her to her breaking point with what he’d expected of her when he was still trying to be Hawk Moth. He’d almost killed her. It makes sense she’d want to go somewhere else.

Gabriel’s fumbled _his_ way back to a better life. Nathalie deserves on of her own too.

And yet.

The manner of her leaving. How _quiet_ she’s been about it, as if she would have been happy for him never to have known until she walked out that door and never came back one day.

It just doesn’t make sense.

She’d been _right._ He had no legal way to stop her, and she’d done everything the company had asked of her regards her leaving.

And yet.

With everything she’d done for him he’d thought she was more than just his subordinate these days, but Nathalie had acted as if that was all there was to them. As if she’d never risked her life for him, as if he’d never carried her worn-out body back inside the house, and maintained a ceaseless vigil until he was sure she’d survive.

Had Nathalie considered all of that just her _job?_

When she’d said he and Adrien had used to need her was her only concern to keep the company going?

He has no Miraculous to ferret out the answers now, and he has no one he can ask. Both Adele and Adrien are impossible for much the same reason.

So he puts the question aside.

The _why_ of Nathalie’s resignation shouldn’t matter. Only the fact of it.

* * *

Her absence causes a shift in the house.

He’d never really realised how little he doesn’t know about his own home and his own business letting himself rely on Nathalie instead.

When Adele asks him why there’s no Christmas decorations up he has to admit he’s no idea, he’ll have to ask his assistant.

That’s part of her job right?

It had certainly been part of _Nathalie’s_ job.

* * *

He tries ringing her once when he can’t find something.

The number isn’t in service.

He realises after that he was trying her work-phone.

It takes some effect but eventually he dredges up her personal phone number from some forgotten file.

This one does ring.

Only Nathalie doesn’t answer.

* * *

Sometimes he wonders if she lied about not being ill. Or at least, no more so than the damage her use of the Miraculous left on her.

* * *

His first new assistant barely lasts a month before quitting.

The second does better. He’s not _Nathalie,_ and Gabriel’s resigned to the fact he’s never going to be able to rely on anyone than like he did on her at this point, but he’s better at picking up on all the things Nathalie had known. Gabriel assumes it’s pure talent until he walks into the Atelier while the other man is on the phone and hears;

“Thanks Mlle. Sancoeur, you’re a lifesaver.” The man puts the phone down and must realise he’s miss-stepped from how he freezes in Gabriel’s sight, as if Gabriel’s been hit by one of his own akumas and become some sort of male gorgon.

“You talk to my old assistant,” Gabriel says.

“I try not to bother her,” he holds his hands out in defence, “but there’s a lot of knowledge she had that wasn’t written down.”

That’s an understatement.

He tries to keep his exterior neutral, as he turns a cold stare on his assistant, despite the adrenaline running through him.

“Give me her number.”

He does.

It’s the same one Gabriel’s been ringing.

* * *

He doesn’t _understand._

Nathalie had been right in her accusations, but she’d still helped him all those times, and despite the power differential he’d thought of her as a friend. As part of his family.

Then again his son doesn’t stay in contact much now he’s at university either so perhaps that’s not inconsistent with that at all.

He’d barely managed to get Adrien to stay in Paris, and _that_ only with a compromise Adele had brokered for the boy to get his own place.

And Gabriel had never been one for mindless phone calls with his own parents either. Perhaps they’re just not like that.

 _Emilie_ had always rang from her film sets to see how he was doing.

 _Adele_ always video calls whenever she’s abroad.

So perhaps Gabriel is the problem. Most likely it’s _his_ influence that’s made Adrien like that. Maybe even by some osmosis it’s why Nathalie is acting like this too. 

But then he _does_ call Nathalie.

She just doesn’t pick up.

* * *

He should stop ringing her he knows. It’s like picking at a scab. And yet part of him keeps believing that she’ll answer him.

* * *

On the days Adele isn’t here filling up the house with warmth and brightness it feels more like a silent mausoleum than a home.

Of course it _had_ been in many ways for years but even then it never felt this silent. Adrien’s piano playing had echoed through the house. Nathalie voice had broken through his grief. Even up in the attic there had been the quiet but not quite silent beat of hundreds of butterfly’s wings.

“Move in with me,” he asks Adele over dinner one night.

She looks inexplicably startled by it, then her face softens, “Gabriel,”

“It makes sense,” he says before she can refuse him, “you spend most of your time here when you’re in Paris anyway. What’s the point of keeping up yours?”

“It would make sense,” she agrees, tilting her head to the side and for a moment he’s distracted by how the sunset catches on her blonde hair, and the interplay of colours and what he could do with that, and then she brings him crashes down to earth, “for other people.”

“What?”

“I value my independence,” she says, “I think you can understand why given my past.”

Gabriel scowls at the reminder of the ex-husband who had made her life hell, and tried to screw her over in the divorce and, “I know that, and I’m not like him. I’m not asking you to sell your home. Just to make this your base; your apartment will always be there for you.”

“Gabriel,” she sighs and walks over to drape her arms over his shoulders, and he’s thrown by _her_ doing something that usually _Nathalie_ did, or _had_ done, she hadn’t done it for a long time before she left, “I’m not rejecting you.”

“Aren’t you?”

She releases one arm and slips between him and the table to sit on his lap and smiles sadly, “I’m not,” she leans in and kisses him and some of the tension in him drains away, and this time when she pulls away her smile is teasing, “I never realised you were so clingy. I thought you were more like me.”

“I think I pretend to be,” he admits, “But the house seems so silent now, without Adrien and Nathalie.”

Adele sighs again. This time she sounds tired. “Do you know how many times you bring her up?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nathalie. This isn’t even the first time this day. Never mind this week. It’s all ‘I’m sorry my assistant isn’t as capable as Nathalie’, or ‘Nathalie used to deal with this,’ or what was yesterday’s first thing in the morning when I woke up, oh yes, you asked me to buy Adrien’s Christmas present because, and I quote, ‘I can’t ask Nathalie to this year’.”

“I _know_ I should do it myself, but I’m terrible at presents. Always have been. Emilie generally got Adrien’s and yes, in her absence I got Nathalie to do it instead.”

“You’ve always done fine giving me presents.”

“That’s different.” He can give her _clothes,_ and _handbags,_ and _perfume._ Things he’s actually good at. Emilie had been the same. The only other gift-giving success he can claim is that Nathalie had always seemed happy with the pens he gave her.

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not the point anyway, although I _am_ dragging you out shopping for your son’s present.”

“What’s the point then?”

“That even if I was willing to move in maybe _you_ need to sort out your feelings for Nathalie before you ask me.”

His mouth feels dry, “My _what?”_

“Look I’m not accusing you of anything, because I never noticed anything like _that_ between you, but sometimes you and her, sometimes it used to feel like you had some big secret together that I was shut out of, and maybe it was just the number of years you had together, and maybe it was just the close proximity but you’re _clearly_ not over her resigning. And I think you need to work out why that is before we take any further step.”

She’s got it totally wrong. Their secret is Hawk Moth. And he cares for Nathalie, and he worries about her now he doesn’t know what she’s up to, especially given he _knows_ she doesn’t value her health enough, but it’s not _romantic._ He’s never looked at her in wonder and been unable to look away the way he has with Emilie and then with Adele.

But she’s not _totally_ wrong. He doesn’t understand why his lack of resolution to the question of Nathalie’s actions should effect his relationship with Adele, but she’s right that it’s unresolved.

“It’s not the resignation.” He admits, “It’s this disappearing trick she’s done. After all those years I suppose I sort of considered us friends. It’s disconcerting to discover she doesn’t.”

“Maybe you should ask her.”

He laughs bitterly, “I would if I could.”

* * *

And that's that.

Nathalie clearly doesn’t want to be found

There’s no reason he should chase after her.

* * *

Until—

“Uh, Adrien’s out,” his son's friend and unfortunately flatmate says, looking up when Adele convinces him it would be a good idea to drop in on him.

“Out?”, he bites out acidly, accompanied by his best glare reminding the boy that he doesn't like him and he's only letting him room with Adrien because of the amount of streams he has on SoundCloud, “It's a bit early for any sort of party isn't it? And I didn’t think he had a lecture at this time.”

“Yeah?,” Nino says, “It's the second Wednesday of the mouth that's when he goes for lunch with, Oh—

* * *

“Um, yeah,” Adrien’s hand goes to his neck awkwardly, and Gabriel wants to know how anyone born from him and Emilie can be such a bad liar, “I see Nathalie sometimes. We ran into each other on the street once, and it grew from there I guess.”

“Did it?”

Adrien shrinks back at the ice in his voice but he says, blinking innocently, “It never occurred to me to say anything, I assumed you know.”

His eyes remind Gabriel of Emilie and he thinks maybe his son isn't such a bad actor after all.

* * *

Still Gabriel isn’t _bad_ at getting what he wants from people.

* * *

There's no answer when he rings Nathalie’s doorbell either.

It makes him look around for some sort of camera but there’s nothing obvious. And he heads back to the front of Nathalie’s building in defeat only to find her exiting a taxi there. It takes a second for him to recognise her with her hair down and not dressed in one of her usual suits.

She watches it leave for far too long, then she finally turns and heads back into his building, only to come to a complete stop on seeing him.

“ _You,”_ she spits, with an expression on her face he’s never seen before, “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

“Why?”

“You haven't answered my phone calls.”

She shrugs, at that attempted nonchalance aimed at _him,_ that’s unfamiliar too, “I don't work for you anymore. I'm happy to help your assistant out now and then but you shouldn't be ringjng _me_ with things. I have an actual job to do.”

“For god’s sake. I haven’t been looking for you as your _boss.”_

“Why then?”

She looks at him blankly as if she honestly doesn’t know, as if he imagined all those years, as if he’d imagined Hawk Moth and Mayura, and Nathalie’s supportive presence though Emilie’s grim deterioration before that.

In the face of his silence she opens up her handbag looking for her keys and he realises she’s slightly drunk, and as the streetlight catches on her cheek that she's been crying.

Concern shoots through him smothering his anger, “Nathalie are you ok?”

“Ok?” Her chest heaves and he can't tell if the sound coming out is a laugh or a sob, “I haven't been ok in _years._ ”

His instinct is to hug her, the way she’d always comforted him, but when he tries she pushes him away, “It’s fine. You don't need to pretend to care for me any more. You got what you wanted.”

He feels dizzy in confusion, “What are you talking about. Of _course_ I care for you.”

“Just go away. There’s no reason to manipulate me now. I'm not going to expose you or whatever you’re worried about.”

Gabriel has no idea what she’s talking about. It feels like he’s talking to someone impersonating Nathalie rather than Nathalie herself.

It starts to spit rain and Gabriel looks at Nathalie in her light jacket over a rather summery dress and makes a decision, and grabs the hand fumbling with the keys and takes them opening the door. Nathalie doesn’t object to _that,_ but when she stays frozen looking at him rather than following him in and he sighs and pulls her in before she gets drenched by the rapidly increasing rain, she fights physically against his hold.

“Let go of me!”

It startles him enough that he _does_ release her once they’re inside.

Now she’s the one to sigh. “You’re not going to leave are you?”

“I wasn’t planning to no. Not until I got answers.”

“Haven’t I given you enough?”

Cut by her words, he admits, “I’ve been worried about you.”

“Look. We can’t talk about it here.”

Once there in her apartment, Nathalie speaks without turning around. “Do you know where I was tonight?”

It’s a clearly a rhetorical question and he doesn’t attempt to answer.

“I was on a date.” She continues, “With a guy I’ve seen a few times, and it was all going fine. Until he brought up that he still has nightmares of drowning because of one of your akuma attacks when we drowned Paris, and his sister’s been scared of heights ever since the Bubbler. And I had to sit there and try and be comforting and pretend I hadn’t helped cause all of that, and then find an excuse to end things with him, because it was _very_ clear he’d never want to date Mayura.”

He could say that neither of those attacks _had_ been her work, but it knows it won’t be appreciated.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.” She turns round to face at him finally and he doesn’t recognise his Nathalie in the woman in front of him at all, “I _liked_ him, I actually liked him, and he _liked_ me. Do you know how difficult that is to find? But it turns out I _can’t_ escape my past. Some of us don’t get happy endings Gabriel.”

His throat feels tight. “Is that why you left? To escape the past?”

“No. I told you why you I left.”

“I’m starting to think there was more to it than that. You told me you were leaving. Not that you were _disappearing.”_

“It’s the same thing.”

“It’s _not_ the same thing. If it was you’d treat me and Adrien the same.”

She rolls her eyes. “Adrien’s a completely different situation. If I answered the phone to you once, I know I’d keep doing it, I’d keep doing whatever you asked of me I’m not strong enough to resist that.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

He can’t even pretend his doesn’t sound like a plaintive fool saying it.

“I don’t like the person I become around you. Even without a Miraculous. I terrorised Paris for you, and for what? Because you couldn’t grieve like a normal person? If we’d got Emilie back it might have been one thing, but you _did_ let go of her. We just had to hurt everyone else before we got there.”

“You know it was more complicated than that.” She _does._ She was there. Of all people _she_ should know.

“Was it? What you did for Emilie, what I did for _you,_ wasn’t that the worst kind of selfishness and delusion?” She exhales, “Tell me, if you’d met Adele earlier would it have changed things? Would you have stopped earlier?”

That’s an easy answer. “No. I wasn’t capable of noticing anyone back then. In fact I’m not even sure I’ve never met her in passing before.”

“I doubt it. You barely left the house, but that’s some comfort I suppose. I _am_ glad you’re happy you know. Even if it’s not-” she cuts herself out, “well sometimes I do anyway.”

“Even if it’s not,” things start to fall into place, “Nathalie, do you resent me for being happy? After all we did? When _you’re_ not?”

He’s been lucky. That’s something he’s able to admit. Twice over even. Luckier this time around maybe because Emile, she had ought to have been out of his reach but he proved himself to her, but Adele he’s done nothing to deserve at all. 

“I'm not proud of it. But then I'm not proud of much when it comes to much when it comes to how I am about you. “

At that he feels the need to defend their past together, to defend _her,_ “You should be.”

“What?”

“You were a brilliant assistant. I wouldn’t _have_ my company if not for you.”

“Right. Thanks.” She sounds unconvinced.

“And you were the best friend I could have asked for.”

This time she takes a step back and looks down. “Don't.”

Once away he is quite genuinely lost, “What?”

Perhaps he’d never said, never felt the need to state out loud he trusted her as more than his assistant but he can’t think that saying it now should elicit this reaction.

“Don't pretend we were something we weren’t. What we had, where you took and I gave that wasn't friendship.”

“What? Are you going to claim that all of it was your _job?”_

“Some of it was. But no, most of that was my idiocy.”

She doesn’t elaborate further.

“No. No you don't get to say that. You don't get to pretend you we were nothing. Not after what we’ve both done. “ he grabs her by the shoulders, “If it had just been _me_ all those failed attempts were taking a toll on _,_ if I hadn't seen what it was doing to you, and even to Adrien _I could have kept going longer._ Maybe I’d have kept going forever. You almost died for me, you could have died for me. Don’t tell me that was all your job. I need to understand why you'd do that but leave like this.”

She looks away from him, refusing his attempts to reclaim their former intimacy, “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters. _Happy._ You called me. How can I be happy when the one person I've been able to rely on all this time suddenly disappears on me?”

“You _can_ rely on me. I told you I won't expose you.”

“I know _that_.” He scoffs. That was one thing he’d never even thought to panic about. “That's not why I'm here. “

“Why _are_ you here? Why not just let me go?”

“I missed you.” He confesses, “And I was worried about you. I didn't like not knowing what was going on.”

“You always did like being in control,” she concedes but she shrugs off his hold as she does so, “I’m fine Gabriel. I just need to be away from you.”

It hurts. It _shouldn’t_ when she’s been making her position quite clear with her actions but somehow hearing it is worse, and he still doesn’t understand what happened. How he can be having this conversation with Nathalie.

Despite his hurt there’s another consideration too, “At this point I’m past believing you when you say you’re fine.”

She shakes her head, “I'm going to hate myself for this in the morning, but did _I_ really play a part in your decision to stop?”

“I always thought that was obvious. I couldn’t keep justifying what I was putting you though.”

“That's something then. It wasn’t _all_ an act.”

“Why in the world it have been an _act?”_

Nathalie’s probably the only person that’s seen anything near the truth of him. Even with Emilie he always felt a need to fit in with her standards, to her _world,_ and of course Adele knows nothing of Hawk Moth, but Nathalie, Nathalie’s seen as close to all of him as anyone ever has.

And apparently she’s decided she doesn’t like what she saw.

“You’d fuss over me one moment, and ask for my help despite the danger another. I was too stupid to realise at the time but it was the only thing that made sense, that you saw a sad lonely woman in front of you and realised you could get me to do anything for whatever crumbs of affection you could bother yourself to offer.”

“I,” he grasps for words to match her accusation, “ _What?”_

“I’m still not sure you weren’t, just that it wasn’t deliberate. I mean you’re still trying to convince me to do what you want right now aren’t you?” She swallows what definitely sounds like a sob, “You’re a good manipulator Gabriel. You get what you want, we both know that.”

He has to disagree. “I didn’t get Emilie back.”

“That’s true, but I don’t think you can really be faulted for _that._ ”

Not for that maybe but, “I lost Adrien somewhere along the way.”

Nathalie nods silently at that.

“And apparently I’ve lost you too.”

“You don’t need me.”

She’d said that before. That she could leave because he and Adrien didn’t _need_ her anymore. And perhaps she should be right, his new assistant should be his assistant and _Adele_ should be his confidante, and Adrien’s living out of the house attending university without any apparent need for a minder. And yet they’ve both sought her out.

“I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve treated you badly, I can acknowledge that. But I never had these ideas you ascribe to me, I never thought of you like that. Couldn’t we try again? If I committed to _not_ making demands on your time then perhaps we could try being friends. Properly this time.”

Her lips lift in disbelief, “Both of us have barely know how to have friends. What are you even imagining? Exchanges of Christmas and Birthday cards and stilted meals with me and your family once year? No. This is better. I _need_ this. More than you need me. You have _Adele,_ and I thought things were improving with Adrien.”

“What do you mean I have Adele?”

An eyebrow raises, “Your girlfriend?”

“Obviously I know _that,_ I mean, what’s Adele got to do with,” he stops suddenly realising, “you quit after she and I got together officially. Not immediately after, but you’re too sensible to quit without a job to go to, and that would have taken time.”

Nathalie lack of an immediate reaction proves him right and then she caves, like she sometimes did when she had to admit something _had_ gone wrong before, “Alright you caught me, I thought that was a clear sign you were stable and healed enough that I felt able to look to helping myself for once.”

“No, no that’s not it,” He tries to look at it from all directions, “Did she say _something?”_

That doesn’t make sense. Yes, Adele _had_ apparently noticed they shared something more than work, but she’s, she’s too nice for that. Too nice for Gabriel to deserve if he’s honest, it makes him feel like _he_ has to be a kinder version of himself or disappoint her, even Emilie had had an acid tongue at times when she decided to unleash it.

“No,” Nathalie says but it can’t be the whole story because she’s being too careful, he almost misses the earlier spite, “She was always very polite.”

“Then?” Crumbs of _Affection._ He didn’t _need_ her _._ A _lonely_ woman _._ She’d claimed she was surplus because he had _Adele._ Since she left she’s been trying to _date._ “Did you think, when I gave up, did you think _we_ were going to happen?”

The very idea is confusing. He’d been _married._ She’d been his _assistant._ And then he’d put her through things a man should never put anyone he was in love with through.

Shouldn’t have put _anyone_ through but he’d thought it was worth it for Emilie, until he realised it wasn’t. 

“No. Though thank you for showing me exactly how ridiculous you find the idea. I think I needed to hear that.”

The latter part of that, much as it makes him regret not being more careful in his reaction, doesn’t seem to fit with the first, “No?”

“I thought that just because you’d given up Hawk Moth that didn’t mean you wouldn’t grieve Emilie forever.”

“I do. I just don’t let it define my life anymore.”

“I see.”

He pinches at the bridge of his nose as if he can make sense of this revelation,

“You had? _Have?_ ” Nathalie shrugs at him, “feelings for me?”

“Now you’ve completely exposed me, are you finally willing to let me go? You must see why whatever ideas you’ve had can’t work.”

“You left because you were _jealous,_ ” it dawns on him, “Were you happy to never have me so long as you were deferring only to Emilie, _a dead woman,_ but you couldn’t swallow seeing me pick someone else rather than you in her stead?”

“Get out.” Nathalie’s voice is pure ice. “Now. I don’t think we’re anything more to say to each other.”

* * *

For once he’s glad Adele is out of Paris when he gets home.

Jealous, he’d said.

But.

Once, when he and Emilie had been flirting but not quite dating he’d thought she liked someone else. As it turns out the man was a childhood friend she considered more a brother than any sort of possible romantic interest. In the meantime though, well it had hurt, seeing them together.

There’s no reason Nathalie _should_ be obligated to sit through that.

And he and Nathalie have more to tie them together now than he and Emilie did then.

He’d _manipulated_ her she’d claimed.

He hadn’t _meant_ to. He’d never had a thought of it, but while Gabriel might not be _good_ with people in the traditional sense but he _is_ good at getting what he wants from them.

 _Had_ he made her promises he hadn’t realised he was making, and then reneged on them when _he_ had a chance for happiness leaving her alone?

“I’m sorry.” He texts her.

It’s utterly insufficient but he thinks this might be the second big thing in his life he can’t fix.

She doesn’t reply.

* * *

He’s losing time staring out the window again. Adele breaks him out of it with a kiss to the cheek in greeting, “Bad day?”

She cocks her head, “Or bad _week?_ ”

He exhales, “I talked to Nathalie.”

“Oh?”

“She,” _was in love with me,_ “hates me.”

“Oh.” She blinks. Then she reaches up to him in sympathy, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s understandable.” He says flatly, “I put her through a lot she didn’t deserve after Emilie’s death, but she felt too constrained by loyalty to leave until she thought I was back on track.”

He waits for Adele to ask for _more,_ to want to know _what_ he’d done but she doesn’t. She just embraces him instead.

* * *

Adrien is a tentative enterprise. After _Nathalie_ Gabriel is perfectly away of how easily you can lose someone without either of you needing to die.

But over time, and with prompting from Adele, who seems much better at it despite never having had children of her own, he manages to get to a point where Adrien _offers_ to come to visit rather than having to be ordered to.

Neither of them mentions Nathalie to the other except in passing. Which happens a lot whenever the past gets pulled up because of her former constant presence, but that’s little enough because they tend to avoid talking about the past too.

Gabriel can only hope that conversation didn’t lead to Adrien losing her too.

* * *

One day he gets a notification of a message from Nathalie. He almost drops his phone in surprise.

“Going to actually try to run from my past and leave Paris.” It starts, “Not sure why I’m telling you but it feels right.”

He writes and deletes a thousand things that all sound wrong, too formal, or too demanding, or just insufficient.

~~Good luck.~~

~~Will you still talk to Adrien?~~

~~Paris will miss you~~

~~You’ll do brilliantly I’m sure~~

~~I’m not sure you can outrun it. But then I hide from it so I’m no better.~~

“I hope it helps. Good luck with the move. And if you ever need anything please don’t hesitate to contact me. I owe you. And I am sorry. For what I said that night and the rest of it.”

* * *

Two years after that he gets a Christmas card from Nathalie with a return address in Geneva.

He holds it for a long time, wondering what it means, whether this means she’s _happy,_ or if this is forgiveness, or her taking him up on that offer of friendship, before accepting he can’t know.

Of course he writes back. ~~~~


End file.
